How this woman remembers the love that her father had for her and her family, by unknowingly, carrying on the tradition of how he’d, cooked the meals for her family when she was just a young child, translated…
In my memories, my mother rarely cooked. Because she’s very stubborn on what she made, and more often than not, it’d taken her, two hours to make one dish. Like the kitty ears, she’d had to, make them one by one by hand, to make them into the shape of ears. And the stir-fried bean curds with the julienne meats, she’d needed to have the consistent sizes of the bean curds and the meats, otherwise, nobody gets into the frying pans. But, there were, four of us kids in the house, and, kids can’t stand the hunger, how can we all wait? Besides, my father was very hurried, and free and wild, and after a while, it’d become my father, who took over the cooking at my home.
On day during the winter of my third grade year, my father returned home later, my mother weighed in the time, it was six in the evening, and by the time she’s completely finished with cooking, it’d be, after eight, but my father told us he’ll be home at eight, and will have the foods prepared by 8:30. So after the rice is washed and into the rice cooker, my mother announced, “Let’s wait”. And so, all of kids just, waited, waited, and waited, that winter’s night. And, as the minute hand struck eight, my father rushed into the door, without a second word to us, bang, bang, bang, he’d made EVERYTHING by 8:30 for real, I’d even remembered what brand of Chinese cream cheese we had that evening too.
a man, cooking for his family, there’s not a better way to show his love for them, is there??? Not my photo…
Those tastes that made people nostalgic, normally came from moms, or grandmothers. But in my home, it was, the tastes of dad. The beef noodle soups, the pickled cabbage in the dumplings, the pan fried fish he’d insisted on buying directly from the fishermen in the harbor of Keelung, along with the fatty stewed pork in the pots too.
My father is a fast cook, he’s casual, completely, Sagittarian personality. He’d not cared about the sizes of the meat pieces being exactly the same, that the dumplings don’t look like the Chinese treasure, he’d just, chopped up the produces at random, and carelessly, thrown everything into the pots and pans, but it’d still, tasted just as delicious to us all. If a produce fell to the floor, he’d picked it up, washed it up, while nobody else was looking, and, pretended that he’d not, dropped the produce, and put it into the pans and pots to cook just the same. Watching him cook, was like enjoying a free and wild show of modern day dance.
My father never taught me how to cook, but I was, a Sagittarius like him too, we’d done things, the exact same ways. After I’m grown, I’d cooked, and would usually pick up the produces I’d dropped onto the floors, back into the fryer too, like I’d not, dropped it, and just, continued cooking. And even though, I’d learned to cook the western foods, learned the Shanghai style cooking from my own mother-in-law, but, the at the end, I’d just made those few dishes of stewed foods, the sour cabbage dumplings. And every now and then, I’d made fun of myself, for not being innovative and stubborn in the foods I’d cooked, and these couple of years, as I’d had children, I’d, realized, that I was, missing the tastes of dad, the tastes of my home, in my own way.
making a meal for his loved ones…photo from online still…
And, you’d, inherited your father’s way of cooking, unlike how meticulous your mother was in her cooking, he’d done things on a whim, and, managed to get you and your family the meals he’d, promised, and you’d, somehow, inherited his ways of cooking, and used it, to remember him by…
Life, the Obstacle Course 